ABSTRACT
W hen I entered Harvard in late September, 1939, what mathematical knowl edge did I carry with me? As I have said already, I took Algebra I, Algebra II, Plane and Solid Geometry, and Trigonometry in high school. Then there were the subjects I had taught myself: first year calculus, analytic geometry, some determinant theory and a bit of point set topology culled from E. V. Huntington’s The Continuum. In addition, there were a few things I had worked out for myself, such as the Newton formula for polynomial interpolation.
